Failure Quotes

“These violent delights have violent ends.”

William Shakespeare

“Better one safe way than a hundred on which you cannot reckon.”

Aesop

“Clumsy jesting is no joke.”

Aesop

“Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if thou dost not succeed in doing everything according to right principles; but when thou hast failed, return back again.”

Marcus Aurelius

“When thou hast been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in a manner, quickly return to thyself.”

Marcus Aurelius

“The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is that he expects all hurt and benefit from himself.”

Epictetus

“The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.”

Cicero

“Better and safer is a certain peace than a hoped-for victory.”

Livy

“This is an unfair thing about war: victory is claimed by all, failure to one alone.”

Tacitus

“I think that many men might have attained to wisdom, had they not fancied that they had already attained it.”

Seneca

“If there want but one basket of earth to complete the work, and I stop, the stopping is my own work.”

Confucius

“The faults of the superior man are like the eclipses of the sun and moon. He has his faults, and all men see them; he changes again, and all men look up to him.”

Confucius

“He whose evil deeds are covered by good deeds, brightens up this world, like the moon when freed from clouds.”

Buddha (Dhammapada)

“If you shut your door to all errors, truth will be shut out.”

Rabindranath Tagore

“Occasions of adversity best discover how great virtue or strength each one hath.”

Thomas à Kempis

“Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew.”

Francis de Sales

“The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain.”

Samuel Johnson

“He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.”

Edmund Burke

“Man still must err, while he doth strive.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.”

Mark Twain

“There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”

Oscar Wilde

“Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.”

G. K. Chesterton

“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.”

Thomas Paine

“It's not the going out of port, but the coming in, that determines the success of a voyage.”

Henry Ward Beecher